


A Breath of Life

by orphan_account



Category: Shades of Magic - V. E. Schwab
Genre: Author Is Sleep Deprived, F/M, Holland deserved better, I've written this while crying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2019-11-18
Packaged: 2021-02-12 18:24:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21480838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: The happy ending that Holland deserves
Relationships: Holland Vosijk/Original Female Character(s), holland/hapiness
Comments: 3
Kudos: 9





	A Breath of Life

**Author's Note:**

> I just finished A Conjuring of Light and can't stop sobbing so I decided to write about my favorite character. He is a precious thing and deserved better than the angst trainwreck that was his life  
God damn it, V.E Schwab

Holland had given up hope a long time ago

It was a tricky thing. Hope. Made the impossible tangible and the fall so much harder. If you craddled it, if you allowed it to lay roots in your chest it wouldn't take long to spread and overtake all, to numb your heart and cloud your eyes. Athos made sure he remembered that, branded the reminder on his flesh. Hope was useless and to hope was to invite the pain.

So when Kell brought him back and they both landed on the Silver Wood, the grass a bright green that clashed against the dark one of the tree leaves, he didn't dared to hope. Not even when he heard the young antari's gasp, or saw the river, the same one he spent hours spilling his blood into, trying desperately to force his will,his powers into its waters in an useless atempt of changing the grey into blue. A blue that seemed so surreal now, so many years later.

Holland looked at his world's sky, the once cold white now a deep cobalt, and felt tears falling on his cheeks. It had worked.

The city glowed with light on the forest surroundings, the marble-white constructions visible against the sky. Alive. Magic rushing through the streets like blood on veins.

_It was beautiful_

He heard Kell's voice distant but couldn't quite understand the words, too occupied absorbing every detail of his new world, felt the gust of air that the other made when he left, his cheerful goodbye.

With timid steps, Holland made his way into the city 

* * *

He met her on a summer night, the air hot and stars filling up the sky like glittering jewellery. She smiled and held his arm, her hands soft and warm against his cold skin, a touch so light he almost missed it, so very different from Talya's tight grip.

Her name was Saorin, and she said it like a secret

She was different from Talya in every aspect, the honey braids replaced with onyx black, the hazel eyes sweet and soothing. Her small frame seeming so fragile and yet with a strenght he had only seen once, on a king he called friend.

Holland told her everything, every detail of how he used to have magic and how he lost it while fighting a shadow king on a different London, on a different world. And she listened to him, her head resting on his chest with his arms around her, trapped in a lover's embrace.

There were days we're he barely missed his magic, that the mere thought of the suffering it caused made his skin crawl, but there were also days when the absence ached deeply , the wound still open. Saorin was always there, combing his hair with her fingers and singing songs of a distant past, of a world that was dying and the Someday King who saved them all. 


End file.
